


Overwatch

by MagusLibera



Series: Any Happy Stories [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive (Arrow TV 2012), Self-Doubt, Smoak Queen Family, William-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23401582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: William loves his family, but he sometimes struggles to remember the role that he has in it. The value that he has to his loved ones. Lucas reminds him.As the kids grow up, William's role in their lives develops.Can be read as a one-shot or as part of the Any Happy Stories/SCoM universe. Previously titledThe Brother and the Hacker.
Relationships: Minor Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak - Relationship, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, background Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: Any Happy Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601401
Comments: 19
Kudos: 55
Collections: Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive 2020





	Overwatch

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Autism Awareness Week everyone! Take the chance to learn more about this diverse and incredible neurological difference <3
> 
> Also, read this (just for fun, not for education)! I will never be able to express my love for William Clayton enough, so here he is!
> 
> Did I force a Q&C prompt into a fic that I had already planned to write? You bet I did. Might as well use up that free space for something!

William loves his siblings. From the very minute that he first saw Mia squealing at Felicity from her seat in the car in front of his grandparents’ house, he has been wrapped around the fingers of the Smoak Queen children. But as more and more of his siblings make their way into the world, in spite of the fact that there is no evidence to stir up any negative thoughts, there is always a little voice in William’s head. It tells him that his parents will not love him as much as they love his siblings, it tells him that his siblings will love one another more than they love him, it tells him that he is not really a part of the family, that he is an unwanted intruder, that he should just leave and make everybody happier.

It is the part of his brain that first developed when he learnt what a father is. Before his mother had explained to him that his father could not be with them, he had spent months with the fear that his dad did not want him. Cruel words from other children convinced him that his father had taken one look at him and left. After he spoke to his mother, things improved. He did not feel the need for the father, his family giving him all of the love that he needed, but there was always a shred of doubt left in his mind, whispering that his mother was lying to him.

When Oliver first came into his life, the voice got quieter as he began to see Oliver as a father figure more and more but after the kidnapping and the move, it roared back into existence. That year of isolation was tough, and it ended in him losing his mother. The only parent he had ever known. Learning Oliver is his father did not make it any better. It only confirmed all of the things that he had feared. Oliver may not have known about him when he was a baby but he did know about him before the kidnapping and he still let him go. He still sent him away.

Developing that trust in Oliver had been a big thing for him. Felicity had helped a lot, she was so easy to trust and her unwavering trust in Oliver convinced him to take those final steps with his father. But that trust was quickly broken, and then the voice came back with a vengeance in the long months spent at his grandparents’ house with no word from either of his parents.

Going home seemed to silence it. He was so happy in the knowledge that his parents wanted him, so in love with little Mia that it was able to shut all of the doubts from his mind as he settled into what would be his final childhood home, the cabin in Bloomfield. He spent his time reconnecting with his parents, lavishing love and attention on Mia to make up for missing the first few months of her life, setting up his room in the perfect way after finally moving the last of his stuff home.

There were only a few faint worries before and during the many talks that he had with his parents to improve on their relationships and prevent any miscommunications happening again. The thought that they had not told him about Mia because they wanted some time with just their _real_ family. The idea that they would rather he had stayed at his grandparents’. Oliver and Felicity were so _earnest_ , so loving and attentive and the way that Felicity cried every time she saw him interacting with Mia, so overcome with joy, was more than enough to convince him that he _was_ their real family. That, to them, they loved him just as much as Mia. Though William would have understood them loving Mia more, she was the cutest little thing alive. She was most definitely _his_ favourite family member at the time. But, to their parents, both of them were the greatest.

William finally understood that stance when, a few months later, Lucas and Tommy came squirming into existence and his love for each of them was perfectly equal to his love for Mia but all in completely unique ways. Felicity’s excessive crying during his first few weeks home may mostly have been to do with how much she had missed him and how happy she was to have him back and her family whole, but a big part of it had also, unbeknownst to them, been pregnancy hormones.

It was wonderful, having such a big family after so many years alone. Even after he went off to MIT and was only home every other weekend and during the holidays, it was incredible to know that he had an adoring family waiting for him. Missing him. And Ada’s arrival had only increased that love.

*************************

Ada grows up and, pretty soon, all four of his siblings are reaching ages where they notice the difference between themselves and William. Not in appearance or in the way that he is treated by their parents or in any other obvious way like that, but the Smoak Queens all have strong Smoak brains. All four could, technically, be classed as geniuses, much like William himself. Felicity Smoak seems incapable of raising a child with an IQ lower than one-hundred and fourty. What his siblings do notice is the gaping age difference between themselves and him. Mia is not even six years older than Ada, but William has over thirteen years on Mia, almost fourteen on the twins and eighteen on Ada. He had left home for university at sixteen and was never a permanent fixture in their childhood home as far as they could remember. He was grown up and working before Ada had started school.

It is when they start to ask about it in their sweet little voices, “Why don’t you live here all the times, Wills?” and “We missed you, where have you been?” and “Why are you a grown up like Momma and Daddy when we’re still little?” that the doubt begins to kick in again. His siblings adore him, of that he has no doubt, but they are all going to grow up together. They are all full siblings, and even if Felicity has never made him feel like he is any less her child than any of them, that is still an inescapable fact. He has two mothers. He has two grandparents who his siblings barely know. He is different to them. Most significantly, he is closer in age to Felicity than he is to Ada. He sits almost directly between the ages of his parents and the ages of his siblings and he knows that, to anybody that little, he must seem so much more like Oliver and Felicity than like them.

He knows that none of them will ever love him as much as he loves them. That has never bothered him. They _will_ all love him, sure, but he will love them more because, whilst he definitely sees them as his siblings and not his children, he remembers almost all of their births. He remembers meeting them all for the first time. He remembers falling in love and watching them grow. He remembers helping to raise them. Because he was and still is old enough to do that, and to remember it. Siblings all have a hand in raising one another, learning mannerisms and behaviours and a multitude of other things from one another, but William actually helps with the care of his siblings. And it is a privilege. There is no feeling better than seeing a little bit of himself in one of them, than seeing them do something that he taught them. It is remarkable. And it creates a special kind of love that is completely different to anything else, that lets William know he loves them more because they do not have that with him or one another.

*************************

But it brings back the fear. He is so afraid that they will not love him in the way that they love one another. It petrifies him for a long time. Lucas, of course, is the one who picks up on it. Of all of his siblings, Lucas is the empathetic one. His empathy is incredible, in fact, especially for an eight year old, as is his compassion.

It happens when William is babysitting, a common occurrence. Ada is in his lap, her little four year old face buried in his chest as she comes down from a meltdown, and Mia and the twins are keeping a respectful distance, whilst also letting their sister know that they are there for her. After a few minutes, Ada looks up and reaches for Lucas, sniffling “Lou-Lou.” And William feels himself tense up. He helps Ada over to the middle child and watches as Ada settles, finally relaxing in Lucas’ small arms.

Lucas observes William for a moment before speaking, “William?” he starts, making sure that he has his big brother’s attention, “Are you worried that Ada loves me more than you because I’m her full brother and I live here?”

It is like a dagger to William’s heart, hearing the blunt but innocent words of his kid brother as they lay plain all of William’s greatest fears and struggles. He cannot help but suck in a sharp breath, on the verge of a breakdown before Lucas continues.

“Because you know that’s ridiculous, right?” the boy just blinks, his voice steady and smooth as he continues to calm Ada, all the while not taking his calming eyes away from William, “You’re our sibling just as much as we’re each others’ siblings. You’re Mom and Dad’s kid and you love us unconditionally and look after us like we look after each other. I don’t love you in the same way that I love any of them because I don’t love them in the same way. I love Mia differently to how I love Tommy and Ada and I love you differently too but that doesn’t mean I love you any less. Ada just wants me right now because I’m calming. She always wants me or Dad. Mom says it’s because we have natural soothing presences. But she wants you for different things that she would never go to me for and it’s like that for all of us.

“Mom always says that absence makes the heart grow fonder and I get that because when I miss you when you’re not here it just makes me love you more, not less.” Lucas finishes his inspiring, insanely mature speech at that, clearly having said all that he wanted to. William thinks that it is the most he has heard Lucas speak at once. He is a quiet one, but when he talks everyone listens because it is always important. A fact that he has proven more than ever today. Lucas always seems to know exactly the right thing to say.

“Lucas-” William breathes, choking back tears.

“You thought we loved you less?” Mia asks, upset.

“No…” William protests, wanting to wipe the sadness from her face, “I-” and then he suddenly has an armful of Mia, swiftly increased with another armful of Tommy and he sits there, surrounded by the love of his little siblings, looking into Lucas’ eyes in an attempt to show how grateful he is, how much he loves the blonde little boy and the angel in his arms, and he thinks that maybe the voice is gone forever.

*************************

The children grow up and, as soon as they hit their teens, William has no more worries about being seen as more of a parent than a brother. Not that he really had any after that day with Lucas anyway. But Mia and Tommy quickly get very grown up very fast and think that Oliver and Felicity are the most annoying people on the planet. But William is still the coolest. For different reasons. Now, he is the cool big brother with the valid ID and his own apartment in the city and his own company.

Clayton Consolidated was named for both his mother and his father. Clayton for the maternal side of his family, Consolidated in honour of the company that had once been his paternal family’s legacy. It grew as a subsidiary of Smoak Tech, delivering all sorts of innovative technology to the world and quickly becoming one of the most successful Smoak Tech companies.

In his spare time, William is far less of a savoury character. He really does take after his second mother in every aspect of his personality because, just like she had before him, he becomes a hacker. It started whilst he was still a teen at MIT. He saw something unfair happen and he decided to change the outcome, thinking that it would be a one-time thing. It was not. It happened again, and again, and again, until the most exciting part of William’s day became arriving home, opening up his encrypted laptop and weaving his way through the dark web.

He began with domestic disputes, putting things right on the small scale. Wiping away the parking ticket of a young, single father who had been rushing his daughter to hospital. Editing the grades given by that teacher he discovered was taking bribes. Small things. And then he started finding evidence for lawyers to use to put criminals in prison. And then he started to find the criminals for the law enforcement so that he could do their jobs for them. And more, and more, and more until he realised that, much like Felicity Smoak before him, he had become a cyber vigilante.

He _loves_ it.

*************************

The kids keep growing.

Before he knows it, he is housing Mia as she attends Star City University and dealing with everything that comes with that. Even in an apartment as large as his – one of the benefits of running such a successful company – she is still a lot to deal with. Especially as he tries to keep his secret from her, not wanting a lecture from his parents if Mia babbles in front of them and they find out. And she eats _so much_. He thinks that the only way she could stay so tiny and eat so much would be if she was running around all night exercising.

And that, _that_ is what leads to him becoming the next Overwatch. The digital shield to the next generation of heroes in Star City.

**Author's Note:**

> [The National Autistic Society](https://autism.org.uk) ([@Autism](https://twitter.com/Autism) on Twitter) is a great place to start if you want to know more about what it's like to be autistic or love somebody who is and my dms are open on Twitter if you want any recommendations or just to chat about anything. I'm [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera).
> 
> Please stay safe, wash your hands and stay inside as much as possible. Please remember your fellow humans who will also be going through a tough time right now.


End file.
